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Penelope's Worth: Looming Large in Early Greece Author(s): Carol G. Thomas Source: Hermes, 116. Bd., H. 3 (3rd Qtr., 1988), pp. 257-264 Published by: Franz Steiner Verlag Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4476626 Accessed: 10-10-2019 00:03 UTC

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PENELOPE'S WORTH:

LOOMING LARGE IN EARLY GREECE

The value of Penelope's hand in marriage remains an unsolved mystery

despite the amount of discussion the issue has raised. A common argument

asserts that marriage to her was the key to the kingship of Ithaca. NILSSON

argued that >>The hereditary principle was so deep-rooted that the throne when

empty was given away with the hand of the queen dowager ...<<'. More

recently, Luce advanced something of the same position: >)It is clear (though

never stated in so many words) that the successful suitor could hope to become

king. Penelope's choice of husband would legitimize the succession 2<<.

It is not easy to understand why Penelope should confer the kingship unless

earlier matriarchal institutions lingered in parts of Greece. By this argument,

the epic poets vaguely recalled conditions of the past when the power of

women was greater and so conferred special powers on certain women like

Penelope.

Some years ago I examined the question of Greek matriarchy in light of

evidence from the Bronze Age cultures of Minoan Crete and the Mycenaean

mainland and from the Dark Age culture of Greece3. Nothing leads me to

alter the conclusion of that article that matriarchal institutions are almost in-

visible in both the Mycenaean and later Dark Age Greek cultures. It is true

that women are prominent in the artefacts of the Minoan civilization, a

visibility that may suggest a high status in society. Yet even though

mainlanders were strongly influenced by Minoan culture in the second millen-

nium B. C. E., Mycenaean society remained patriarchal. Dark Age Greece,

too, appears to have been a masculine world. The language of the epics reveals

the role of women in the survival of the OlKOf but shows them exercising little,

if any, directive role in society. If matriarchy flourished in Greece, its floruit

must be placed before the Bronze Age. Remembrance across the course of

several millennia seems a weak thesis to account for the value of marriage to

Penelope.

Quite a different answer to the question of Penelope's status is that it is a

poetic creation. The entire world of the epics is fictitious, never existing on

' M. P. NILSSON, Homer and Mycenae (London, 1933) 225-6.

2 J. V. LUCE, Homer and the Heroic Age (London and New York, 1975). 3 oMatriarchy in Early Greece: The Bronze and Dark Ages<, Arethusa 6 (1973) 173-195.

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258 CAROL G. THOMAS

land or sea. Consequently it is a mistake to regard the poems as representative

of actual institutions of any sort4.

It must be conceded that the epic poems contain a variety of strands. There

are heirlooms from the Bronze Age as well as references belonging to the

poet's own time. Equally diverse are the fictitious and factual elements of the

tales. The Catalogue of Ships has been shown to reflect a Bronze Age pattern

of settlement while individual characters and situations are clearly the pro-

ducts of the poetic imagination5. However, the Iliad and Odyssey belong to

the category of >>literature<< that derives from a oral tradition. One of the

essential features of any oral testimony is that it speak directly and im-

mediately to its audience. Uncertain archaisms will be modernized6 or they

will give rise to interpolations of an explanatory nature7. Change in the

received tradition is gradual but constant, making the testimony understan-

dable to the present audience for which it is sung or told. Consequently, it is

possible to argue that the Homeric epics preserve the essential structure of an

operative society8. So, the courtship of Penelope cannot be explained away

as poetic creation.

Assuming that her status corresponds to the real world of Homer's au-

dience, let us examine her value in the context of late Dark Age Greece. What

institutions and beliefs are reflected in the status of the wife of Odysseus?

It is obvious that she is highly desirable. >>In beauty, stature and sense

there is not a woman to touch you<, Eurymachus tells her (a 248-9). For three

years she has been courted by 108 of the ?tgy' 'apioTot / XopWV giV 'It9dCK (j 121-2). Only recently, in the dramatic time of the poem, has her ruse of

4 S. BASSETT, The Poetry of Homer (Berkeley, 1938) 244: )>He created a life that never was

on land or sea. The men of his times did not care to know; they were content to enter into and

make their own a mythos of life.<< More recently, A. SNODCGRASS has taken a similar position in

)>An Historical Homeric Society?<< J. H. St. (1974) 114-25. SNODGRASS maintains that the poems

are based on historical sources of great diversity in nature and time.

I R. H. SIMPSON and F. LAZENBY, The Catalogue of Ships in Homer's Iliad (Oxford, 1970).

6 M. PARRY, L'Epithete traditionelle dans Homere (Paris, 1928) and English tr. pp. 1-190 in

A. PARRY, The Making of Homeric Verse (Oxford, 1971) and A. B. LORD, The Singer of Tales

(Cambridge, Mass., 1960) 33 et passim.

7 J. VANSINA, Oral Tradition, A Study in Historical Methodology tr. H. M. WRIGH1 (Lon-

don, 1965, first published 1961) 42ff. on the nature of explanatory interpolations as means of ex-

plaining archaic words and customs. As VANSINA states, >>Changes take place in societies, and

when tradition refers to certain social situations of the past which no longer exist, the knowledge

about them which is necessary for full understanding of a testimony gets lost<.

8 J. M. REDFIELD, Nature and Culture in the Iliad: The Tragedy of Hector (Chicago, 1975)

23: )>... song is for an audience and in this sense is located in history. In reconstructing the heroic

world, we implicity reconstruct the audience which understood it, the audience for whom the Iliad

was not ... problematic. In this sense, and really only in this sense, the Iliad is a direct source for

its own period; ..

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Penelope's Worth: Looming Large in Early Greece 259

open weaving and covert unweaving been detected. Telemachus has been ad-

vised to send Penelope home to her father who will provide a dowry for a se-

cond marriage (p 85-128. 195-197). The suitors would then continue to vie for Penelope's hand but away from the megaron of Odysseus/Telemachus.

From this scenario, it is possible to deduce only three possible explanations

for the great contest over Penelope's hand. She, like Helen, is sought for her

exceptional beauty and intelligence. Secondly, it may be the richness of ex-

pected dowry that draws suitors to Penelope. Less obvious, though suggested,

is the possibility that a successful suitor would gain some of Penelope's present

wealth and status as wife of Odysseus and mother of Telemachus.

The first and second explanations of Penelope's worth need not be

challenged. What about the third; would she bring anything of her present cir-

cumstances to a new husband? While Telemachus is alive, it is not likely that

Penelope would gain the possessions of her husband. Odysseus' property

would be his son's inheritance. Remarriage would remove Penelope from

Odysseus' estate both physically and legally. The suddenly conceived plot to

murder Telemachus in order to gain Odysseus' property is added evidence that

Telemachus is the intended heir (, 330ff.; n 370ff.).

If not the wealth of Odysseus, is kingly office the prize of marriage to his

widow? The epics do not present a picture of firmly established official posi-

tions as J. HALVERSON has cogently argued9. The situation on Ithaca for the

twenty years of Odysseus' absence is proof of the slight importance of fixed

administrative institutions in the workings of society. There has been no king;

no assemblies have been necessary; no collections of gifts have been

organized. Thus, there is no official kingly position to be bestowed by anyone.

There is, however, the status Odysseus has enjoyed in the island realm.

Perhaps Penelope could transfer that status to another. Even this suggestion

seems to fail because of Telemachus. There is some debate over which family

is the Pia0cT5tTpov (a 386-7 where Antinous concedes that kingship of Ithaca is catpdiov to the genos of Telemachos and o 533-4 where

Theoclymenus tells Telemachus that there is no genos 0aGtX&f)TCpov). Just as he is likely to inherit his father's possessions, so too is Telemachus a candidate

for his father's societal position.

That position is not particularly exalted. Our recreation of the world of

Homer has tended to be too lofty '. The evidence for the conditions of life

during the Greek Dark Age reveals a simple society: communities were not just

I J. HALVERSON, Social Order in the 'Odyssey', Hermes 113 (1985) 129-145.

10 Attempts to find a mirror image of the Mycenaean world in the epics are largely responsi-

ble for the distorted image. LUCE, for example, sees a structured hierarchical society reflected in

the epics. Much closer to the proper perspective is the description of M. 1. FINLEY, The World

of Odysseus (New York, 1965).

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260 CAROL G. THOMAS

small, they were tiny. The architecture of such villages is homogenous for the

most part and the artefacts bespeak no great distinctions in wealth. Contact

with other communities was minimal both within Greece and in the larger

Aegean and Mediterranean world. As in Thucydides' account, people were

migratory and readily left their homes whenever overpowered. They planted

the ground only enough to gain a bare subsistence11. The world of the

Homeric epics is just such a simple society writ larger. Let us return to

Penelope for she symbolizes the measurement of wealth and position therein.

Consider Penelope's kinship associations. Penelope is the daughter of

Icarius, brother of Tyndareos. Through fraternal lineage, she is the cousin of

Helen whose charms were only too well known in antiquity. Not only Helen

but many of the line showed special blood. Helen's brothers were Castor and

Polydeuces, sired by Tyndareos and Zeus respectively. Such was their lineage

and prowess that they shared an undying status even after death. Because of

his marriage into the family, Menelaos has been told that he will win the

privilege of on-going life in the Isles of the Blessed (6 563-4. 569). Even the

Icarian line of the family shows an unusual degree of proximity to the divine:

the mythology of Penelope represents her as the mother of Pan. Marriage to

Penelope is not like marriage to most women. It holds a special place in the

eyes of the gods and, thus also, in the eyes of mortals.

The importance attached to lineage in the Homeric epics persists in the Ar-

chaic and full Classical periods. While the spheres of divine and human

regularly interact, certain individuals have a closer relationship to the gods.

The power of such a relationship is entirely real; it confers status that others

do not enjoy'2

To be allied with a family holding such distinction is of great worth in

several ways. It brings special esteem by the gods; it creates an >>alliance of the

closest sort, by which non-kin become kin<< 13 and it usually carries tangible

Thuc. 1.11,1-2. On the nature of the villages see ))Towns and Villages< 303-316 in J. N.

COLDSTREAM, Geometric Greece (London, 1977) who describes most villages as little more than

a >chaotic jumble of cottages<< (304). The artefacts are thoroughly discussed by A. M.

SNODGRASS, The Dark Age of Greece (Edinburgh, 1971) and V. R. d'A. DESBOROUGH, The Greek

Dark Ages (London, 1972). On population see A. M. SNODGRASS, Two Demographic Notes in:

The Greek Renaissance of the 8th Century B. C.: Tradition and Innovation ed. R. HAGG

(Stockholm, 1983) 167-171, >>... population had sunk to a point where a really prominent site

might be one that housed a community of, say, a hundred or two people ...<o (171); ..... the ex-

ceedingly impressive evidence of the Lefkandi cemeteries so far discovered has yet to attest a

population of much more than fifty people.< (169)

12 J. P. VERNANT, Du mythe a la raison: la formation de la pensee positive dans la Gr&e ar-

cha'lque, Annales E. S. C. 12 (1957) 183-206 on the role of certain people in a )>climat religieux

tres special< in the late eighth and early seventh centuries.

13 W. DONLAN, Reciprocities in Homer, Classical World 75 (1982) 137-174. >>... the over-

riding purpose of marriage is alliance, of the closest sort, by which non-kin become kin.o (146)

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Penelope's Worth: Looming Large in Early Greece 261

marks. Alliance through marriage entails exchange and indeed the bride is part

of the exchange. Dowry is bestowed on the one side and gifts to the bride's father are given on the other. Quantity of material resources is another mark

of status in view of all of the associations that these resources connote.

The scope and size of great wealth is symbolized by Penelope in a dramatic

fashion: through her skill at weaving. Penelope uses weaving as a ruse to

forestall the suitors but it is clear that she is an expert at the loom in creating

physical as well as intellectual products. There are a number of reasons for em-

phasizing this skill and for associating it with a >>queen<( rather than a lowly

slave girl.

In the Iliad and Odyssey the verb 6(paivciv has two primary uses. It

describes both the craft of working the loom and, figuratively, the art of devis-

ing counsels or wiles. In the first sense it is used of Helen and Andromache

in the Iliad (F 125; Z 456; X 440) and, in the Odyssey, of Penelope, Calypso

and the nymphs (i 94. 104; &, 517; T 149; X 129. 139; E 62; p 108). With this

meaning, it also describes the products of the loom, woven raiments (y 274;

A 136; v 218; o 231). In its figurative capacity, it occurs with neutral connota-

tion (F 212; H 324; I 93) and to depict guiles (Z 187; 8 678; c 356; t 422; T 139).

Penelope weaves garments and wiles very cleverly indeed. This cleverness takes us to a basic dimension of the world of Odysseus, one

treated in recent work by anthropologists and sociologists who look at cultural

processes 14. Drawing on findings that are applicable to a number of periods

and cultures, it can be maintained that Homeric society is a ranked society,

>>one in which positions of valued status are somehow limited, so that no all

those of sufficient talent to occupy such statuses actually achieve them<< 15. A

sign of the validity of the definition is the importance of competition in the Homeric poems: the thoughts and energies of heroes in both the Iliad and

Odyssey are set upon gaining one of the limited positions of valued status.

Such status is gained and expressed in concrete forms. In circumstances

where the economy is based almost solely on products of the land and the rais-

ing of livestock, concrete expression of wealth will be basic food and animal

products 16. The importance of the land need not be stressed. Less noticed,

perhaps, is the very great worth of animal husbandry. Animals are a source of

food; equally important are their labour and secondary products. Moreover,

14 The work of scholars like C. RENFREW in England and L. BINFORD in the U.S. illustrates

the new perspectives offered by putting new questions to existing data.

'5 M. FRIED, The Evolution of Political Society (New York, 1967) 109.

16 Much of the best work on ancient economic history in the past two decades has em-

phasized the role of agricultural wealth, control of which was >>the central source of wealth, status

and political power in the ancient world((. J. BINTLIFF, Settlement patterns, land tenure and social

structure: a diachronic model, in: Ranking, Resources and Exchange ed. C. RENFREW and S.

SHENNAN (Cambridge, 1982) 107.

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262 CAROL G. THOMAS

animals provide a means of preserving food not needed immediately. >>A par-

ticularly elegant form of indirect storage is the use of agriculture and animal

husbandry, in tandem, whereby surplus plant food is converved into a more

stable animal form which can be consumed in time of need 17.<< Those on the

margin of subsistence will not be able to store much, if any, food in the form

of animals.

Not only can animals serve as storage of food, they are moveable wealth

and, as such, can serve as an object of exchange. The role of animals in the

development of trade in prehistoric societies can be demonstrated".8 Those

communities favorably located with respect to natural resources and to avenues

of interaction with other communities first undertake the exchange. And

within those communities, certain individuals have greater wealth to use in this

way. Both those individuals and those communities reap the rewards of their

initial wealth.

The Greek Dark Age communities look very similar to communities of

other times and places that have begun to show distinctions based on ac-

cumulation of basic products. Certain grave burials are slightly richer; one

dwelling in a village is of larger proportions. The more impressive grave goods

and dwellings are not qualitatively but quantitatively different I9.

What, then, caused >the primitive, peasant egoism that directs the atten-

tion of Homer's characters to the possession of cattle, property, and treasures

...<< 20? The possession of goods was the means to and mark of status, that is,

' P. HALSTEAD and J. O'SHEA, A friend in need is a friend indeed: social storage and the

origins of social ranking, in: Ranking, Resources and Exchange 92-99, quote from 93.

18 For example, cattle served as the vehicle for major social and economic changes on the

great Hungarian plain in the fifth millennium B. C. See A. SHERRATT, Mobile resources: settle-

ment and exchange in early agricultural Europe, in: Ranking, Resources and Exchange 13-26. The

importance of sheep and goats in the Aegean is well documented from the Bronze Age through

the Dark Age and continuing in the Classical period. See J. KILLEN, The Linear B Tablets and

the Mycenaean Economy, in: Linear B: a 1984 Survey ed. A. MORPURGO DAVIES and Y. DUHOUX,

(Louvain-la-Neuve: Cabay, 1985) 241-305 and C. GAMBLE, Animal husbandry, population and

urbanisation, in: C. RENFREW and J. M. WAGSTAFF, eds., An Island Polity: The Archaeology of

Exploitation in Melos (Cambridge, 1982) 161-7.

'9 On changes in burial goods generally see A. M. SNODGRASS, Archaic Greece: The Age of

Experiment (London, 1980) 52-54. Writing of Argos, R. HAc;G concludes that grave goods in-

dicate a homogeneous society in Protogeometric times but, by the eighth century, a differentiated

society is revealed through differences in rich and poor tombs although the differences are >>not

so striking as in many other societies((: Burial Customs and Social Differentiation in 8th-century

Argos, in: The Greek Renaissance 27-31. Reflective of architectural differentiation are sites such

as Koukounaries on Paros where a large building may be the house of a local leader. See D. U.

SCHILARDI, The Decline of the Geometric Settlement of Koukounaries at Paros, in: The Greek

Renaissance 173-183. At Emporio, a large building has also been tentatively identified as ?the

residence of a local chief<(, by COLDSTREAM, Geometric Greece 308.

20 B. SNELL, Poetry and Society (Bloomington, Indiana, 1961) 6.

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Penelope's Worth: Looming Large in Early Greece 263

exceptional position. Just so, the skill of weaving was needed only in excep- tional households. In the list of weavers of the Iliad and Odyssey, Penelope is joined by Helen, Andromache, Calypso and nymphs. This is no demeaning ability; in fact, it belongs to the mighty not the lowly of society. These women

are able to weave and create woven raiments that often are stored as treasures

as the Phaeacian gifts to Odysseus surely were. Of course, some weaving was directed at production of practical items, such as the shroud for Laertes.

However, raiments could be stored, >>impractically<< on the shelves in chambers to be given in gift exchanges at a later point in time.

The wealth of Odysseus otKOC is really quite simple. Odysseus possesses

great flocks; Eumaeus can boast of twelve flocks of cattle, sheep, goats and

swine on the mainland as well as large flocks on Ithaca (t 96ff.). The well being of those animals is a fundamental concern to the members of the OiKO;. Telemachus goes directly to the fields on his return from sandy Pylos (o 555-7) and the two faithful male servants to Odysseus are herders. Odysseus possesses wealth great enough to be able to employ his animals for their secondary pro-

ducts. His wife can and does weave! Far more than a homely, domestic touch, accumulation of this form of wealth has been shown to lead to greater political centralization and economic specialization as societies move from rank order-

ing to the institutions of state structure21. Only those who accumulate such products can fully exercise the functions of leadership.

Penelope is representative of the initial movement in that direction of the emergence of state in early Greece. She symbolizes in simple fashion the basis of Odysseus' position in his community and in the world beyond Ithaca. She is a measure of his wealth in all of its manifestations. Her ancestry is exalted and the gods have regularly selected members of her line for special distinc- tion. She herself possesses personal beauty and stature. Her wit is demon- strated by the loom as she is able to spin wiles as well as cloths. And that same loom illustrates the great wealth of the household.

In other words, her own status is like that of Odysseus. She is (piXi to Odysseus because she is so like him. In BRUNO SNELL'S description, she

)>belongs to Odysseus<. Thus she is sought by the suitors. A second marriage would bring to the new husband the aura of Odysseus himself. And the value of aura is mighty in a culture where the spheres of visible and invisible, tangible objects and intangible forces are one and the same22.

21 J. HAAS, The Evolution of the Prehistoric State (Columbia 1982); ).... the initial leaders of the society are already in a central economic position and may be expected to assume a similar position in the newly initiated or centralized economic system<o (176).

22 B. SNELL, The Discovery of Mind tr. T. ROSENMEYER (Oxford, 1953) argues on the use of the same word for both an organ and the function of that organ that external and internal are not differentiated in the Homeric epic.

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264 KARIN ALT

Such an interpretation of Penelope's value is a long way from matriarchy,

almost its antithesis. As such, it will not be welcome to those seeking to rescue

early Greece from what they deem to be an erroneous position with respect to

its women. Yet the interpretation accords with both the archaeological

evidence from the Greek Dark Age and with the language of the Homeric

epics. Penelope reflects high status even though she confers no kingly office.

What is more, she is of more value alive than dead, unlike the hapless

Ghanaian girl who was wooed by a king's son and a chieftain's son

simultaneously. When neither suitor was successful, they cut the girl in half

thereby sharing her status23.

Cambridge (England) and Seattle (U.S.) CAROL G. THOMAS

23 J. VANSINA, Oral Tradition 15-16.

EINIGE FRAGEN ZU DEN 'KATHARMOI'

DES EMPEDOKLES (Schluf3teil)

(vgl. diese Zeitschrift 115, 1987, 385)

III

Nach Hesiods Zeitaltermythos' lebten die Menschen des goldenen Ge-

schlechts ohne Sorgen, Muhen, Jammer und ohne Alter; die Erde brachte

ihnen von selbst Frucht in Fulle hervor. Ob und wie sie die Gotter verehrten,

wird nicht vermerkt, doch vermutlich taten sie das Gebuhrende, denn eben das

Versagen darin wird dem silbernen Geschlecht angelastet und bewirkte seinen

Untergang durch Zeus. Undenkbar, dal3 fur Hesiod die Tiere um ihrer selbst willen wichtig sein konnten bei der Darstellung glucklicher Phasen der Vergan-

genheit; seit dem Ur-Opfer von Mekone, bei dem Prometheus den folgen-

schweren Betrug der Teilung beging, sind sie lediglich Objekte beim

Gotterkult2. Die Legende vom goldenen Zeitalter unter Kronos, die pessimi-

stische Sicht der weiteren Entwicklung lal3t sich schwerlich vereinbaren mit

dem Sukzessionsgeschehen der 'Theogonie' Hesiods, das mit der Oberwin- dung des Kronos und der Titanen auf den strahlenden Sieg des Zeus hinzielt

I Hes. Erga 109ff. 2 Theog. 535 ff. Ihr Nutzen fur die Menschen bei der Landwirtschaft klingt an Erga 46. Vgl.

Aisch. Prom. 462ff.

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